THEMES OF INTEREST

Press release

Asylum is a right, regardless of nationality!

With the arrival of people with international protection needs of Ukrainian origin at the Tijuana-San Diego border, an immediate response was generated by the authorities of the United States and Mexico.

A different result from the response obtained by migrants and asylum seekers from migrant caravans from Central America and internally displaced persons from Mexico.

Given this, member organizations of the Observatory of Racism in Mexico and Central America (ORMC) call on the governments on both sides of the border to recognize the differentiated treatment and to develop actions that allow the thousands of people on the move waiting on this side of the border to access their right to asylum.

Alma Migrante supports the position expressed in the statement Asylum is a right, regardless of nationality! prepared by ORMC and its allied organizations:

Here the full statement:

April 22, 2022 Tijuana, Baja California

With the arrival of people with international protection needs of Ukrainian origin at the Tijuana-San Diego border, an immediate response was generated by the governments of the United States and Mexico, in contrast to what has been done towards migrants and applicants for asylum —Migrant Caravans— Central American, Caribbean, Haitian, African

and internally displaced women from Mexico.

Those of us who have been on the front line of defense and humanitarian support for these groups in a situation of discrimination observe how the issue of Ukrainian mobility is approached from a sensitive and humanistic narrative while the Afro-descendant and Latin American population is given racialized treatment, of marginalization and criminalization, which is why we call for establishing measures that prioritize international protection needs from an inclusive approach and with a rights and gender perspective.

Unfortunately, Ukrainian migration has exposed the inadmissible unequal treatment and selective application of migration policy with a strong racist component that excludes and discriminates against racialized and non-European migrants.

For example, on April 4, Chris Magnus, head of the Office of Customs and Border Protection (CBP, for its acronym in English) announced that together with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE, for its acronym in English) would increase their capacity to serve the Ukrainian population, while President Biden announced that they would have the capacity to receive 100,000 Ukrainian people.

On April 6, the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed that at 6 in the morning Ukrainian people began to be processed through the figure of “humanitarian parole” or permit humanitarian.

Since then, around 500 to a thousand people are processed daily. At this rate, approximately 12,000 Ukrainians have been processed to date, surpassing the number of people of other non-European nationalities (9,600) who are still on the waiting list as of March 2020.

In addition, the DHS also promised not to separate Ukrainian families in contrast to the zero tolerance policy of family separation that between 2018 and 2021 separated 5,500 families and that today still does not reunite more than a thousand girls and boys. In addition to the non-application of the Title 42 policy, in force since March 2020 under the pretext of COVID-19, which prevents people from requesting asylum in the United States at the border points with Mexico, from which Ukrainians have been exempted.

Treatment that contrasts with that received by other non-European and racialized nationalities who are not provided documentation for a regular stay in the country, are violently repressed and are denied entry into the country, violating their right to International Protection; Even those who have immigration documents for regular stay in Mexico are detained at airports using racial profiling as a criterion for arrests and are expelled from the national territory.

In addition, upon arrival in Mexico, the National Migration Institute (INM) issues a tourist visa to Ukrainians without hindrance.

We denounce the migratory apartheid that has been generated by the asylum migratory policy of selective admission by the US and Mexican governments, and we demand the abolition of the restrictions imposed on the border to the detriment of the thousands of asylum seekers excluded from the exercise of their legitimate right to asylum in accordance with the following facts:

The Mexico-United States border from March 21, 2020 closed for “non-essential” crossings. This closure occurs due to the pandemic, without scientific support, and with it, the United States government did not consider the 9,600 cases of asylum seekers on the waiting list to be essential, many of whom have been waiting for more than two years. response.

In September 2021, the organization Al Otro Lado won a lawsuit in which a federal judge in the United States declared that the “metering” or waiting list system is illegal, and that asylum seekers must be processed in the same way. immediately upon presentation at a port of entry.

However, seven months after this order, the people on lists since 2020 have not been prosecuted, as the governments of the United States and Mexico say they do not have the capacity to prosecute so many people.

It is clear that the lack of resources cannot be a valid justification since in a few weeks 12,000 Ukrainians have been processed, more than those on the waiting list. This situation makes visible the nonexistent political will of the governments on both sides of the border to make the right to asylum a reality for the hundreds of people waiting in Tijuana, exposed to the same violence and vulnerabilities that have forced them to abandon their homes. places of origin.

As organizations committed to the respect, protection and guarantee of the Human Rights of migrants and applicants for international protection, we urge the governments of Mexico and the United States to generate measures that allow people with international protection needs to access this right without import the country they come from, leaving aside arbitrary, racist and discriminatory treatment.

We express our solidarity with the Ukrainian people. Displacement due to war is a situation that no person deserves to experience.

That is why we hope and exhort the authorities of both countries to apply the same conditions of support to our Latin American, Caribbean and African sisters in situations of displacement due to violence and vulnerability.

We are all migrants and migration is a human right regardless of ethnic-racial characteristics, nationality, language, skin tone, accent, clothing and phenotype.